Dog wrote:Good man. The habs lost because of a lucky bounce off Emelin's stick.

These teams are too closely matched. Luck is by far the biggest factor. The only possibly differing factor was goaltending, and those have been relative non factors (Lundqvist having a bit of an edge, actually).

It was a lucky bounce.

But this is why possession is important. If the puck is in the habs end for all of ot chances are the rags will be the ones to eventually get that lucky bounce.

Rangers owned us in ot

They're almost mirror teams. Mtl owned the first half of the game but didn't profit from it enough. NYR owned the last half and got the last goal. Of course playing better and controlling the flow would've helped in the ot, but it was an eb and flo game, same as the whole series and it flowed that way in ot. Mtl is a bit better at keeping chances to the outside, Rangers have a bit more 1 on 1 offense, but if they play 100 times it'll be 51-49.

It is very even. Every game is a coin flip which is why this series isnt over.

I cant believe max will continue to take 5 shots a game without scoring though. Think hes gonna pot a few soon and that might be enough given how close things are.

TittiesNBeer wrote:I cant believe max will continue to take 5 shots a game without scoring though. Think hes gonna pot a few soon and that might be enough given how close things are.

They are almost all perimeter shots so it's easy to believe.

Except they arent.

Sportsnet had an article on this yesterday. In the first four games he had 7 high danger scoring chances (chances max converts just under 25% of the time normall) and numerous other medium danger chances (stuff he converts just under 10% of the time normally). It then compared him to everyone else in the series. The only guy at that level is nash.

In addition to the stats there was a compiliation video of his chances.

The explanation that his shots are perimeter doesnt hold up when you watch the video.

Patches had 2 or 3 legit chances last night, so it's a good sign. He's shot the puck a lot so far, but a lot has been coming from bad angles. I agree with Dog that his inability to keep the puck and his giveaways in the offensive end has been frustrating. He needs to be better in that aspect.

We keep coming back to this narrrative that he's shooting from the perimeter and from bad angles. He's not.

Here are his 7 high danger scoring chances (in video form, for the I don't trust the stats, i need the eye test) from the first four games. You can see, he's getting chances from in tight, and not from bad angles.

Meh, he's been getting looks, but that doesn't mean his game is where it needs to be. The habs in general have been having a hard time sustaining pressure, and Pacioretty's main weakness has been not being able to provide space and time for his teammates in the offensive end because he's not strong enough on the puck and he's making bad decisions under pressure. Those are things that fans, coaches and teammates expect from one of the team's biggest and best forwards.

With evaluating Pacioretty's game, many fans always conflate his shots with his success, but you expect him to do other things well to generate offense not only for himself, but his linemates too. The main reason Pacioretty gets criticism when he's still shooting is because he's not protecting the puck, moving his feet and making bad passes.

That said, some shots from bad angles are the right play, but it's the exception to the rule.

Retarder S wrote:Meh, he's been getting looks, but that doesn't mean his game is where it needs to be. The habs in general have been having a hard time sustaining pressure, and Pacioretty's main weakness has been not being able to provide space and time for his teammates in the offensive end because he's not strong enough on the puck and he's making bad decisions under pressure. Those are things that fans, coaches and teammates expect from one of the team's biggest and best forwards.

With evaluating Pacioretty's game, many fans always conflate his shots with his success, but you expect him to do other things well to generate offense not only for himself, but his linemates too. The main reason Pacioretty gets criticism when he's still shooting is because he's not protecting the puck, moving his feet and making bad passes.

That said, some shots from bad angles are the right play, but it's the exception to the rule.

"Pacioretty's main weakness has been not being able to provide space and time for his teammates in the offensive end because he's not strong enough on the puck"

And again we go back to the stats that no forward on either team has better possession numbers in the series. So his line is sustaining pressure in the offensive end.

Look he's not scoring, I get how frustrating that is. But just because a player spends five games without scoring a goal, it doesn't mean that he is not doing the same things he's done all season long and is now playing poorly. He isn't. He just is getting shut down by a combination of Lundqvist's great goaltending and a lack of puck luck over a small sample size.

As McPhee said, play these teams 100 times and it probably ends 51-49 cause they are so closely matched. I'll add this, let them play 100 times, and Max likely comes up with 40 goals. However there will probably be a 5-6 stretch where he doesn't score. Lets hope its 5 and not 6.

I think 67 is limited at times by the team not having a C who can drive a line. There's nothing To criticize in Danault's game but he isn't that kind of player. He got his 35 this year because he's a tremendous goal scorer.

Radu is a playmaker, but at times, a C has to direct traffic. It's a team flaw and it's hard to address but in tough games, our big guns are vulnerable.

What stats calculates the times a player is responsible for killing offensive zone pressure? We can talk about corsi% but in no way it paints the picture into how a player manages the puck and how teammates around him support him.

I'm not critical of Max's 5 game scoring drought, I'm critical of his play in the offensive end which affects the team both offensively and defensively. It's the reason why despite playing with the top scorer on the team, his line was blown apart. The stats paint a different picture of what's actually happening on the ice this time. Why are people trading Galchenyuk? I mean he has 3pts in 5 games, not that bad right? Why should we only be critical of players who are not known for their scoring? There's more to hockey than points.

Now, is Patches the only one to blame? No, we should give credit to the rangers too, they've protected Lundqvist well for the most part, specially the last two games. And like mcphee said driving the offense is a team weakness in general, so there's not much the habs can rely on to generate offense on a consistent basis. The thing is, we know the player in question can do better and become a difference maker in the next couple of games, he's the captain and arguably the most prolific forward on team, some form of criticism is warranted.

Dog wrote:Also, what is the fancy stat for "killing a offensive zone presence with a low quality/percentage pass, taking a low probability shot or losing control of the puck"?

It's not that Patches is bad compared to the average player, but is for what you'd expect of a "star" winger.

Nash is a similar player in my mind -whose play should be below Patch's at this point in his career, but he's had more impact on the series. Not so much just goals scored, but amount of dangerous scoring opportunities generated. Anywho, that what I see and mcphee will back me up so tread carefully.

You have to be careful of confirmation bias. Nash has finished his chances, or had a defenceman grab the rebound and finish the chance, where Lundqvist has made the saves on max, and only once has someone put in the rebound (Radulov game 2). So in our mind we think that one is doing more and the other is seeing plays die on his stick. But the stats don't back that up. Thats the most useful thing about the stats to me. Destroying confirmation bias that happens to all of us as fans.

There is nothing to indicate Max is making more low quality plays than anyone else. If he was, he wouldn't have the dominant possession and the great number of high danger and medium danger chances while he's on the ice.

Dog wrote:Also, what is the fancy stat for "killing a offensive zone presence with a low quality/percentage pass, taking a low probability shot or losing control of the puck"?

It's not that Patches is bad compared to the average player, but is for what you'd expect of a "star" winger.

Nash is a similar player in my mind -whose play should be below Patch's at this point in his career, but he's had more impact on the series. Not so much just goals scored, but amount of dangerous scoring opportunities generated. Anywho, that what I see and mcphee will back me up so tread carefully.

You have to be careful of confirmation bias. Nash has finished his chances, or had a defenceman grab the rebound and finish the chance, where Lundqvist has made the saves on max, and only once has someone put in the rebound (Radulov game 2). So in our mind we think that one is doing more and the other is seeing plays die on his stick. But the stats don't back that up. Thats the most useful thing about the stats to me. Destroying confirmation bias.

Nash can score in a way that Patch seldom does, bull rush to the net. After a season and Patch scores 35 and Nash has [?] less than that, it doesn't matter how. It does get noticeable though when the ways to score get limited.

And just because a line is broken up doesn't mean that they weren't playing well or controlling the play.

The fact is that the pucks weren't going in the net.

Julien may think that some kind of shuffling may change things a little, may spark it and get the pucks to start going in.

We've seen over the years, Max is a streaky goal scorer. I still believe if he can get one, he finishes this series with 2 or 3, and takes that into the next round too. If he gets it going he'll be very dangerous as he's getting the chances.

TittiesNBeer wrote:And just because a line is broken up doesn't mean that they weren't playing well or controlling the play.

The fact is that the pucks weren't going in the net.

Julien may think that some kind of shuffling may change things a little, may spark it and get the pucks to start going in.

We've seen over the years, Max is a streaky goal scorer. I still believe if he can get one, he finishes this series with 2 or 3, and takes that into the next round too. If he gets it going he'll be very dangerous as he's getting the chances.

I don't know if CJ spoke about lines but I thought he was looking to use 47 to spark 27, as much as anything. I think he shuffled last night when he may have been better leaving things. Maybe it was matchup or checking related but I didn't see the upside.

TittiesNBeer wrote:The fact that Max doesn't have a centre to play off of/play with is a big factor here though. I agree with that.

Danault isn't a bad passer, he isn't a particularly good playmaker, there's a difference.

I didn't say anything about his passing.

I just said he's not a guy for Max to play off of/play with. We can all agree he's not your typical #1 Centre. Obviously a line with a true #1 C is going to better than one with Danault on it. I like Danault, don't get me wrong. But he's been forced into a role that is probably two lines too high for him right now by circumstances.

TittiesNBeer wrote:The fact that Max doesn't have a centre to play off of/play with is a big factor here though. I agree with that.

Danault isn't a bad passer, he isn't a particularly good playmaker, there's a difference.

I didn't say anything about his passing.

I just said he's not a guy for Max to play off of/play with. We can all agree he's not your typical #1 Centre. Obviously a line with a true #1 C is going to better than one with Danault on it. I like Danault, don't get me wrong. But he's been forced into a role that is probably two lines too high for him right now by circumstances.

I wasn't arguing, or disagreeing, I was continuing the point. here's a trend in the league now, more than I've seen in a while where you see a grinder playing with skill. Maybe Lucic brought it back in style, but it usually isn't the C. I don't think Danault holds anyone back , his board work gets a lot of pucks to his wingers, but there is stuff that he just doesn't do. To Danault's credit, he hasn't tried to play differently to suit his wingers.

From my time with the team, I understand he and the coaching staff want him to be in a position to use his shot from the circles. They believe it's better, numberwise, if he always stays around that spot and let other guys do the trash and digging.